Is Layering better than Sharding?

Blizzard’s goal with layering is to provide many realms with 3k players in them, to simulate any given realm equivalent to launch, with minimal disappearances while you play. Its a worthy goal, when we expect a huge amount of drop off in the player base in the early days.

The problem they’re likely concerned with on Sharding only the 1-10 or even only 1-20, is that people can hit 20 within 1 day played easy, and so 20 may not be high enough before the population drops off again.

I totally think it will drop off after the hype dies down, but given what we’re seeing, people may get far further into the levelling process before they quit than I had originally predicted, and if Blizzard shares that concern, layering is there to hold them for that first week or two even if they get to 20-30 zones.

Adding protections to prevent the abuse of layer hopping, to me, seems like a far better solution to the problem than the usual “Throw it all out!” kneejerk reaction.